Marilyn Writes

Marilyn MacGruder Barnewall began her career as a journalist with the Wyoming Eagle in Cheyenne. During her 20 year banking career, she wrote extensively for The American Banker, Bank Marketing Magazine, Trust Marketing Magazine, and other major industry publications. The American Bankers Association (ABA) published Barnewall’s Profitable Private Banking: the Complete Blueprint, in 1987. She taught private banking at Colorado University for the ABA and trained private bankers in Singapore.

Sunday, September 04, 2016

KAEPERNICK, TRUMP AND FLAGS

http://www.newswithviews.com/Barnewall/marilyn233.htm

By Marilyn MacGruder Barnewall
September 4, 2016
NewsWithViews.com

You may have noticed, the flag business is thriving! Whether
the flags are made in the U.S. or China is a different issue, but from San
Francisco to wherever political candidates appear, flags are featured items.

Quarterback Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers
doesn’t much care about flags. He thinks it is appropriate to show his lack of
respect for the American Flag by sitting on the bench – as he adjusts his black
lives matter practice socks which are decorated with pigs dressed as policemen
– while the National Anthem is played pre-game.

When I worked for a bank, I had the same right to protest
that Kaepernick has as a football player with the National Football League
(NFL). You, too, have the right to protest regardless of who your employer is.
I can attend any protest I want. So can you. A few people we thought were
friends might desert us afterwards, but it is our right as Americans to
protest.

If, however, I bring the protest into my employer bank’s
lobby, my butt will be fired – or, in terms Kaepernick understands, fried like
bacon. On the spot. No questions asked. While I am in the bank and on the
clock, they control my behavior. Am I saying my employer owned me? No. Not at
all. I could quit that job and work elsewhere any day I chose. In the meantime,
a job description told me what the bank expected me to achieve each day. It did
not include political protests. There was a dress code. It did not include
wearing socks with images of pigs dressed like police officers.

What was it black lives matter wanted to do to police
officers? Fry them like bacon?

Kaepernick’s quarterback job description is much different
than mine was as a banker, but, like me, off of the football field he is free
to support any cause he wants – and there are plenty of causes to support in
San Francisco that aren’t terribly popular with the general public. For one
thing, it is a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants, the home of Kate Steinle.
For another, if you can get in and out of San Francisco without being
aggressively approached by panhandlers on the streets, you have had a unique
experience. I no longer go there.

The moment Kaepernick takes the field in a stadium paid for
by the public and is working for a corporation which pays his salary, the rules
change. Neither the public, nor the team for which he plays, support his
personal issues with the American flag. At least, they say they do not. The San
Francisco NFL franchise signed a 6-year, $114 million contract, including a
$12,328,766 signing bonus, $61 million guaranteed, and an average annual salary
of $19 million. In 2016, Kaepernick will earn a base salary of $11.9 million, a
roster bonus of $2 million and a workout bonus of $400,000. That money is paid
to him for his ability to play football.

It's difficult to understand why someone hates the flag of a
nation that made this kind of personal wealth possible via the free marketplace
it offers and the price paid to defend that flag by so many members of
America's military.

In some ways, I agree with much of what Kaepernick says
about what the United States has become. Donald Trump has made clear for us how
corrupt it is from top to bottom.

I often wonder how responsible for the 20 veteran suicides a
day the corrupted government is. These people, feeling such a sense of
hopelessness that they seek a permanent solution to a temporary problem, risked
their lives for that flag and the nation it represents. It must be pretty
depressing for them to come home and find out the government lied to them about
a lot of things – including their medical care and mental soundness to carry a
gun.

In other ways, I would suggest quarterback Kaepernick find
another country in which he can get a $114 million 6-year contract to throw a
football. He should find it and move there... show his respect for that
nation’s flag. Except: No such country exists. I would help him pack if it did.

I would further suggest Kaepernick stop
supporting organizations supported by George Soros – like Black Lives Matter.
Soros so loved his own people that during World War II he helped the Nazis find
and slaughter Jews in his home town. He has been quoted as saying it was a very
exhilarating experience. You can find Soros money behind many of the corrupt
politicians Kaepernick says he doesn’t support... ignorance of facts is a
symptom of an uninformed useful idiot.

In the aftermath of it all (after the San Diego game), Kaepernick
made a contribution of a million dollars to... I'm not sure what. Maybe he's
joined with Soros and supports Black Lives Matter. He's not exactly a
cash-strapped black American who lives in the inner-city and he has little
insight into the real problems of the black community.

His show of angst to the flag and the nation it represents
would have been a lot more meaningful if he had made his protest in years prior
to the one in which the team for which he plays is seeking to trade him (only
to find there are no takers). He's been with them for several years. Is he
laying the ground work for a discrimination suit against the 49ers should they
decide to terminate him for any reason? His timing is perfect – an accident,
I’m sure (not!) to prevent a termination?

Donald Trump is right about the Democrat Party being
interested in black people only as votes, rather than as individual citizens
with needs. He is also right when he says if black people continue to vote for
the status quo they have supported for from 50 to 75 years, they can expect the
same result. Einstein once suggested that to keep doing the same thing over and
over and expecting a different result is a definition of insanity.

This does not suggest that status quo Republicans are much
better than the Democrats, but at least they are not so duplicitous as to
accuse their opposition of doing what they, themselves, do and have done.
History says Democrats are racists:

The 15th Amendment gave ALL men (not women) the right to
vote. 100 percent of Republicans supported the 15th Amendment. No Democrats – 0
percent – supported it.

The Republican Party is the party of Abraham Lincoln who
fought a very bloody and costly Civil War that cost his nation 620,000 deaths
to free America's slaves. Their lives, of course, don't matter... they were
almost all white. I re-ask Trump's question here: What in the world have the
Democrats ever done for you?

Does that give you some idea of how uninformed people are?

Back to my subject: The American Flag.

On that subject, Donald Trump is wrong. I love you, Donald,
but on this subject you are wrong.

Have you noticed the fringe on the flags behind Donald
Trump? I have – and even wrote his first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski,
telling him to get those fringes off of the flags behind Donald Trump at
campaign events. I got no response.

Even more important, have you noticed the lack of fringe on
the flags behind Hillary Clinton? She uses legitimate American Flags. This is a
significant difference between the two candidates.

Who cares about whether there is gold fringe on the flag in
your courtrooms, school yards, Supreme Courts, public libraries, the Congress,
the Post Office and the White House?

I care. Big time I care. So should you – and so should
Donald J. Trump.

On 21 August 1959, then-President Dwight David Eisenhower
signed Executive Order 10834. It is printed in theFederal
Register at 24 F.R. 6865, pursuant to law. Eisenhower made a public
statement about the flag saying: “A military flag is a flag that resembles the
regular flag of the United States, except that it has a yellow fringe border on
three sides.”

On 28 March 1924, the Adjutant General of the Army said:
“Ancient custom sanctions the use of the fringe on regimental colors and
standards, but there seems to be no good reason or precedent of its use on
other flags.” (34 Ops. Atty. Gen. 483, 485.) Thus, use of gold fringe on
American Flags suggests martial law.

According to Army RegulationAR 840-10,
1 Oct. 1979, “the flag (United States flag) is trimmed on three sides with
Fringe of Gold, 2 ½ inches wide,” and “such flags are flown indoors, ONLY in
military courtrooms.” Such a courtroom tries cases on the basis of military
law, not constitutional law, not common law, not civil law, and not statute
law.

Title 4
U.S.C. 3provides that anything put on the Title
4 U.S.C. 1, 2 American Flag -- such as gold fringe – MUTILATES the Flag. This
is confirmed by the authority ofTitle 36
U.S.C. 176 (g). The gold fringe is a fourth color and represents
“color of military law” jurisdiction and when placed on the Title 4 U.S.C. 1, 2
Flag, mutilates the Flag and suspends the Constitution. (Refer to Title 18
U.S.C. 242, see Black’s Law Dictionary).

Though I strongly support Donald J. Trump for President, I
do not support his choice of flags shown behind him at campaign events. I'm
sure he doesn't select them... those who plan campaign functions do. I'm equally
sure America's failing education system didn't instruct the planners on flag
mutilation and which flags represent martial law and suspend the Constitution.
The flags chosen to date are covered with gold fringe. They are military flags
suggesting Martial Law and Admiralty Law... and no Constitution.

Will someone please tell him to get that fringe off of my
country’s Flag? I don't live under the jurisdiction of the United States
Military.

Will someone also please tell him that the best response to
challenges by Hillary Clinton during upcoming debates is: “My statements
support the Constitution of the United States.” Apply the statement to specific
policies, like: “I believe mine is the best solution to the problem of illegal
immigration because it supports the Constitution of the United States. It
follows the laws set down by the Constitution. What you suggest as a solution
to this problem violates the founding documents of this nation!”

That’s an answer every conservative will support and will
offend no one – other than communists and socialists who seek a Tsar or a Queen
or King (or Pope) rather than a President.

About Me

Marilyn MacGruder Barnewall began her career in 1956 as a journalist with the Wyoming Eagle in Cheyenne. During her 20 years (plus) as a banker and bank consultant, she wrote extensively for The American Banker, Bank Marketing Magazine, Trust Marketing Magazine, was U.S. Consulting Editor for Private Banker International (London/Dublin), and other major banking industry publications. Barnewall taught private banking at Colorado University and has authored seven banking books, one dog book, and two works of fiction and one biography.
Barnewall is the former editor of The National Peace Officer Magazine and has written editorials for the Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News and Newsweek, etc. She has written for News With Views, World Net Daily, Canada Free Press, Christian Business Daily, Business Reform, and others. She has been quoted in Time, Forbes, Wall Street Journal and other national and international publications. She can be found in Who's Who in America (2005-10), Who's Who of American Women (2006-10), Who's Who in Finance and Business (2006-10), and Who's Who in the World (2008).